Taking Another Step

Coloradan Tristan Rohrbaugh advances to third stage of Japan Golf Tour Q-school; former state high school champ places 4th in stage 2 tourney

By Gary Baines – 11/16/2024

In the same week fellow Colorado resident Davis Bryant hit it big at Q-school in Spain — earning his 2024-25 DP World Tour card in the process — Tristan Rohrbaugh of Carbondale kept alive his chances of landing a spot on the Japan Golf Tour.

The former 3A state high school individual champion punched his ticket to the third of four stages of JGT Q-school by finishing fourth out of 107 players on Friday in a second-stage tournament in Kumamoto, Japan, east of Nagasaki.

Rohrbaugh, who made some news this past summer by shooting a 14-under-par 58 in a casual round at Ironbridge Golf Club in Glenwood Springs, posted scores of 68-69-69-66 for a 16-under-par total at Kumamoto Chuo Country Club. That left him five strokes behind co-medalists Kazuki Suzuki and Gensai Yamada.

With that, Rohrbaugh, a 2016 U.S. Amateur qualifier, will advance to one of the three third-stage tournaments that are scheduled for Nov. 26-29. The top finishers there will move on to the final stage —  Dec. 3-6 in Yamaguchi — where 2025 Japan Golf Tour cards will be at stake.

Before leaving for Japan, Rohrbaugh tied for fifth place in the Sinclair Rocky Mountain Open in late August in Grand Junction. Also as a pro, he won the 2023 Montana Open and played for three seasons in Mexico on the Gira de Golf Professional Mexicana.

Rohrbaugh is the son of Doug Rohrbaugh, the 2013 Colorado Senior Open champion and a nine-time Colorado PGA Senior Player of the Year.

For all the results of the second-stage Q-school tournament in Kumamoto, CLICK HERE.

About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com